News Brief

Richard Lichtheim, leader of the German Zionist Revisionists, demanded at this morning’s session of the Zionist Congress that the enlarged Jewish Agency for Palestine be reorganized by the Congress because the influence of the Agency on the Zionist Organization has not been a happy one. The enlarged Jewish Agency was created at the 16th Zionist Congress held in Zurich in August, 1929.

Quoting Dr. Lee K. Frankel, a member of the Administrative Committee of the Jewish Agency and one of the leading American non-Zionist Agency leaders, whom he recently met in Berlin, as saying that he was not optimistic concerning the financial prospects of the Agency, Mr. Lichtheim expressed the hope that new ways would be found for cooperation between Zionists and non-Zionists.

In the course of the continued general debate this morning under the chairmanship of Rabbi Meyer Berlin, president of the Mizrachi, Orthodox Zionists, the Congress heard speeches by Dr. Joshua Thon, Polish General Zionist; Dr. Michael Ringel of East Galacia, Kurt Blumenfeld, president of the German Zionist Federation, and Heschel Farbstein, Polish Mizrachi leader.

Farbstein severely criticized Dr. Weizmann, terming his report “an inheritance from a bankrupt idea.” He said that the Mizrachi does not intend to accept this inheritance because it is a total failure. Dr. Weizmann should have withdrawn a long time ago, Farbstein declared. Dr. Thon and the other speakers emphasized that while this was a most critical Congress, Zionists should not despair.